NICOSIA: A landslide victory for a moderate candidate in a Turkish Cypriot presidential election offers a glimmer of hope in breaking an eight-year impasse in peace talks on the ethnically split island, diplomats and analysts said.
Center-left Tufan Erhurman won a commanding 62.7 percent of Turkish Cypriot votes in Sunday’s election, final results on Monday showed, after campaigning on a platform of promising to re-invigorate stalled peace negotiations with Greek Cypriots.
“The mood music among everyone I have spoken to is hopeful, optimistic and pleasantly surprised,” one western diplomat said.
Defeated incumbent Ersin Tatar, whose two-state solution demand was widely opposed by Greek Cypriots, trailed with 35 percent of the vote.
Greek Cypriot leader Nikos Christodoulides congratulated Erhurman, saying he hoped to meet soon.
